first ride in USA with a fellow biker
The original plan was to drop vaibhav as far west of long island as possible, satisfying both my urge of riding on the beautiful 25A-west and making him travel less by train. as usual, for me, any plan that is not really impromptu, fails. vaibhav was too uncomfortable with the thought of facing cold winds despite today’s noon temparature of 19 degrees C. dropped him at the rail station early afternoon.
As soon as I got home, a campus biker friend Bret messaged me and asked if we could ride a little today. A quick glance at the map later we both decided a short 50 mile roundtrip over 25A-west with a detour to Eatons neck beach will be a good start for joint rides. We gave just 10 minutes of time to each other to meet at a campus location. No way this ride could fail, I knew it by then.
It was nice to see Bret’s red Honda CBR600 pull up beside me, a bike I always admired for its 100+ horse power coming out of the 600cc inline 4-cylinder monster of an engine. Mine despite being the same size, delivers only 40bhp, a nice way to keep the insurace as an insignificant nothing.
So my first ride in the USA with another biker took off. This should be the start of an active campus biker club, given we can manage a couple decent rides. I always thought that sportbikes and cruisers were like oil and water and that there cant be a ride with a mix up of them, but I was proved wrong in as little distance as 20 miles. We didnt even have to decide who would be the sweep and lead, it just happened automatically. Quite pleasing to be able see a bike in front or in the mirror to check up.
A lot of bikes on road today. Loud harley riders in half helmets and t-shirts doing speed stunts away to glory. And they could be heard a hundreds of feets away. I grinned and kept riding on.
Eatons neck beach is one of the nicest beaches I had been to. A narrow winding roads climbed up and then down to almost at the water level. A place to return to many more times, especially around sunset.
The CBR600 is an awesome bike. But less ideal for touring. I convinced Bret to look for a sport tourer like a ST1100, but he likes the VFR750. Whatever it is, we just need to do more trips, and long ones with a tent and sleeping bags. There are campgrounds everywhere and it is easy to avoid motel expenses when travelling on a budget and for the real taste of a motorcycle tour. Those days seems to be nearing, as we shall see…
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Snaps: Eatons neck ride - 17 Apr 05
Map: http://www.pbase.com/jdutta78/image/42213876
April 18th, 2005 at 1:08 am
nice pix - specially the last one. I had to turn my head to view it.
April 18th, 2005 at 1:30 am
cool pic macha…. Have a blast